...the big change

"Yes, exactly," Jack agreed with Zoë, "most likely more has changed than you could imagine. That's why I suggest we start with the big change."

"The big change?" she squeaked, nervous about the sound of it.

"Four hundred years ago," Jack began, the world around them blurring, spinning, then reforming on an urban centre, densely populated, the sky grey, the air thick with smoke, "there was an incident. In reality it was a plague, the Great Plague we call it, a horrific time when the population of humans was culled by a strange virus, unlike any seen on the planet before. But it was much more than that."

The scene around them changed. Instead of men and women walking down crowded sidewalks, she began to see them fall one by one, collapsing, bleeding from their eyes, their ears, dying in the thousands. Buildings began to decay, windows broken, infrastructure all around them collapsing. Tears welled up in Zoë's eyes at the carnage.

"It seemed like it was the end of your species," Jack dispassionately cut in once again, "all of your accomplishments, all of your advances, all brought to nothing due to the intervention of one of the smallest creatures in all of creation. But all was not lost."

The wreckage of the world was cleared away, and before Zoë a huge granite statue of a woman rose from the ground.

"Doctor Christina Gamble," Jack said, indicating the statue, "a visionary, a genius. The saviour of your species."

"What did she do?" Zoë asked, wiping away her tears, "Did she find a cure?"

"Yes, and so much more," Jack answered, "You see, the damage to the DNA of every person on the planet was irreversible. If drastic measures were not taken, it would have been the end. A retrovirus," the statue vanished, replaced by a vial, hovering in front of Zoë's face, filled with a purple liquid, "was produced in massive quantities and distributed throughout the world in every means possible. Drinking water, aerosol sprays, injection sites. In order to preserve the species, each and every surviving human partook in the experiment. And it worked."

"So humans were saved?" Zoë was having a difficult time taking all of this in. It was as if she had fallen asleep and woken up in a bad sci-fi movie.

"But irrevocably changed," Jack said, smiling, "We call it the Great Awakening. Resources, due to the decreased population, were abundant. The social conscience was afire amongst the survivors. Even without the other changes, this would have been the end of war and hunger on the planet. But these were the least of the alterations."

Jack's body began to shimmer and shift. Soon the Victorian gentleman was no more. In his place was...